Jones: I'm planning to cycle from near the center of Aberdeen, hopefully leaving rather early in the morning. Anyone that wants to join me on the journey, meet me along the way or at the Hash is more than welcome. After all that time cycling human contact would be brilliant.

As another point I'm hoping to place a couple of micro caches on the way, Dont really know the route that well so ideas on places would be pretty cool.

I struggled out of bed a few minutes before sunrise at my girlfriends and took the short cycle uphill towards my house to collect my bag and my new camelbak. The camelbak(well camelbak like water sack) was a new toy bought for this expedition. This was test day for it.

I set out from my house with the gps logging and headed for Banchory via North Deeside rd, the last town on the route out. North Dee Side is mostly flat and well tarmaced so I made really good progress and it only took around an hour for the 18 miles out. Banchory saw my first break, to buy food and water for the next stage of the trip ~50km.

From Banchory to the turn off towards the hash, the road seemed good and from a glance of the map it would have a good surface. At first everything was good, making really good speeds and as I bombed down a nice hill past the Bridge of Dye my first major obstacle loomed. A massive hill must have been 500m-1000m of climbing. Signs periodically on the hill bore horrifying facts. 14% inclines sapped my moral, but I struggled on. A quarter of the way up, when the whole of this hill was insight I stopped to check my maps. I must be lost I though, I hadnt expected hills of this size. The map proved me wrong, I was facing a climb of 300 to 400 meters over a couple of miles. The point came to choose whether to give up and head back or slog on through a couple hours of hill climbing. As I comtemplated heading home defeated, two cyclists loomed behind me in the distance, dressed in lycra on fancy road bikes. I had to beat these people on much superior machines and pushed through.

I kept going and came out of the looming forest that surrounded the first hill. At the top I broke through into savage winds and low clouds, battered I manned up and pushed forward. A few K in the distance the road bended and loop, but the summit was surely insight victory over this monster seemed certain. Now soaked and hungry I approached the brow of the final part of this hill more than ready for a nice descent. I reached the top and was covered in a looming cloud.